Useless Facts, The Best Kind of Facts

[Talal Provides]

More Roman Emperors were assassinated than died of natural causes.

 

[Naheal]

The term "to go postal" has been around for longer than we think. It originated from a Roman Senator who was assassinated by a postal worker.

 

[tahrey]

One that's stuck with me from highschool physics (chemistry? erm) lessons:

If you imagine the nucleus of a middleweight atom (say, Iron) as being a foo... sorry, international audience... soccerball in size, in the middle of a stadium pitch, the inner shell of electrons will be somewhere at the front edge of the stands. And they're the size of peas. The outer shells are out in the parking lot or further.

Inverting the scale, if you think of the sun as said football, earth is at about that inner shell distance and about the size of a lentil. Saturn is more pea sized, and about a quarter mile out. Pluto is too small to easily see and more than a mile away.

Useful fact: too much contemplation of the sheer changes in scale suggested by either of those comparisons vs the everyday human world, and the implications for the vastness of the universe and our place in it (we are as each to the galaxy as the atom is to us, pretty much) will make your head hurt. Take a couple of painkillers before attempting it. Paracetamol or Acetaminophen, whichever you prefer.

 

[kurupt87]

You only ever breathe through one nostril at a time, never both.

 

[Dezmond]

90% of facts are made up on the spot.

 

[Talal Provides]

Sharks have seven senses.

 

[x434343]

The length between your elbow and your wrist is EXACTLY the same as the length of your foot.

In other words, if you hold your toes on your wrist, your heel reaches your elbow.

 

[x434343]

The longest word in the world is 1185 characters long.

Also, the fear of long words is called "Hippopotomonstrosesquipidaliophobia".

Not true. The full chemical name of the protein Tintin is 189,819 letters long.

 

[ChippedShoulder]

In Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon over 6ft in length. I would think that once it gets to 6ft it isn't exactly concealed anymore but whatever XD

 

[Rockchimp69]

If you take a Scottish male to York in England, you can legally shoot him with a longbow.

If you are an English male over the age of 14, you are breaking the law if you don't shoot on sundays.

I got loads of these, I have a friend who literally collects this stuff xD

 

[WorldCritic]

Despite being called "King of the terrible lizards" T-Rex was not the largest carnivorous dinosaur.

 

[Rockchimp69]

This is possibly incorrect due to my limit understanding of physics and mechanics but:

If you put approximately 250 copies of my body on top of yourself, the force of their weight upon you will be equal to the gravitational pull of a planet 1000 times larger than the Earth.
I weight around 9 stone in case your wondering

 

[SuperCombustion]

bread is one of the main causes of death.

99.98% of people who have ever died have eaten bread, coincidence?

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

It is illegal to not have a shovel in your trunk compartment in Texas.(This was a law stated back when dirt roads were vastly popular.For those who don't know what mud is,look it up)

 

[Talal Provides]

People have been drinking beer for longer than they have been eating bread.

In the United States, the only vehicles that are legally granted the right-of-way at all times are postal trucks.

 

[SuperCombustion]

one of nature's greatest ironies is the compelling evidence that the T-Rex eventually evolved into the farmyard chicken.

 

[Daverson]

Hyenas can make over 20 different sounds, meaning they have the most advanced vocal system of the entire feline family of animals =)

Anteaters and Platypuses walk on their knuckles, like Gorilla's.

On the subject of Platypuses, they're one of the only two mammals that lay eggs, the other being Echidnas.

Ponies are basically terrible Horses. Sorry, I'm not going to sugar-coat things here. They're just horses that aren't very good at being horses. Seriously, what is the appeal of these things? They're like Tapir's, but horses, so they loose the awesome factor of Tapirs.

Certain Scorpions glow blue when exposed to ultraviolet light. (not really useless, if you're stuck in a room full of hidden scorpions and you have a black light!)

Contrary to popular belief, the fruits "oranges" were not named for their colour, rather, the colour was named after the fruit. Before oranges became popular, the colour was simply considered a shade of red.

A lot of people think mole-rats are ugly, but I think they're actually pretty cute! ^_^

The "Dramatic Chipmunk" is actually a Prairie Dog.

 

[BENZOOKA]

There's such a thing as infinity not being large enough.

Example: draw a circle. Realize that there are an infinite number of points on that circle. Draw a line that connects every single one of those points with the center of the circle. The number of lines, by definition, is infinity.

Now, draw a larger circle around the smaller one and extend the lines that you drew from the smaller circle. The infinite lines that you drew from the initial circle are not enough to meet the infinite number of points on the new circle.

I'm sorry, but that's wrong. You're actually putting a definite number of the points for the smaller circle there. Both circles are infinite, so it would seem the "bigger" circle would have more points in it. Even if the quantity of the points for the smaller circle was defined at first (an then it became infinite), then actually the smaller circle would just expand infinitely to meet the demands of the bigger cirle, as would the lines.

To put it shortly: everything infinite will expand infinitely. There isn't a thing as infinity not being large enough for a bigger infinity, because they are both the same size: infinite, expanding infinitely.

In fact, you can't really realize infinite. Trying that for a lifetime will give you a headache at best.

 

[Rockchimp69]

Sharks have seven senses.

That isn't actually that many, we have loads, for example:
Touch,Pressure ,Pain (Damage), Temperature, Balance, Hearing, Vision, Taste, Smell, Sexual Pleasure, Hunger, Thirst etc..

 

[Naheal]

There's such a thing as infinity not being large enough.

Example: draw a circle. Realize that there are an infinite number of points on that circle. Draw a line that connects every single one of those points with the center of the circle. The number of lines, by definition, is infinity.

Now, draw a larger circle around the smaller one and extend the lines that you drew from the smaller circle. The infinite lines that you drew from the initial circle are not enough to meet the infinite number of points on the new circle.

I'm sorry, but that's wrong. You're actually putting a definite number of the points for the smaller circle there. Both circles are infinite, so it would seem the "bigger" circle would have more points in it. Even if the quantity of the points for the smaller circle was defined at first (an then it became infinite), then actually the smaller circle would just expand infinitely to meet the demands of the bigger cirle, as would the lines.

To put it shortly: everything infinite will expand infinitely. There isn't a thing as infinity not being large enough for a bigger infinity, because they are both the same size: infinite, expanding infinitely.

In fact, you can't really realize infinite. Trying that for a lifetime will give you a headache at best.

Let me go through Cantor's theorem again to see if I understood it correctly. I believe that the point that I made would be correct according to that theorem, but I need to make sure I got it correct.